Dessert Party! For Diana!

Hey --that sounds like fun. A party where everyone has to bring a dessert. Whether or not you'll be able to eat all the desserts is the true test. Can you do it? I think I would have the gumption and endurance to survive this feat of great proportions. I've got the greatest, easiest dessert for you to make. I might still post a picture of it here if I don't eat it all immediately. It was too dark out last night and the lighting in my kitchen is horrible.

So, I bought a flat of Jersey blueberries but any fruit will do, I think. Peaches would be great. It's called: Blueberry Cobbler Crisp. I wanted to marry the biscuit-y goodness of a cobbler with the crisp-ety crunch of a crisp. Here's how I cheated:

I used a biscuit mix (cheater! listen, I don't have time for integrity) and whipped up a batch of cobbler batter as directed on the box. I put the oven on 400. I got a glass pie plate and greased it, then spread the batter evenly over the bottom. It doesn't look like much, but it will puff up lots. Then I tossed some fruit, in this case blueberries, with some sugar (1/4 cup?) and spread them on top of the batter. Then I whizzed up a small batch of crisp topping in the Cuisinart, compliments of my pal, The Joy of Cooking. (Look for apple crisp and appropriate the topping recipe.) I turned it into: 1/4 cup flour, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup steel cut oats, 1/4 cup vegetable oil. You can use butter, which is what Joy would recommend. I was low on butter and somehow thought I was doing myself a favor omitting it. Ha! Sprinkle that mixture over the blueberries, pop it in the oven for fifteen minutes, then lower the temperature to 35o for another fifteen minutes. Et voila, you have a scrumptial dessert that's sort of like a fruity coffee cake. Or a cake-y pie. Quick and easy enough for a cranky eight-month pregnant, sugar fiend to make without pushing her to the end of her rope.

Everybody Is Doing It - Strawberries!

On Sunday morning I got up bright and early and drove an hour to a little farm that is renowned for its organic pick-your-own strawberries. It was perfect weather--cloudy and not too hot. I was dressed right, wore a hat, slathered on sun screen.


I picked about 13 pounds in an hour. Didn't eat too many while there too! I left just in time to avoid the crowds.


I drove straight home and began to hull them all. I had plans for: strawberry preserves (left whole), strawberry jam (mashed), strawberry shortcake, frozen strawberries for smoothies, and some just to eat out of hand.


Ready the sterilized jars!


This picture is blurry because I was in a rush to eat the damn thing. It was one of those incredibly good desserts where you probably should stop because it's just an overload of goodness but that insatiable side of you won't let that plate go until it's empty. I felt slightly ill afterwards. But only in the very best way.


Ta da! Down into the basement with you to wait for the dreary winter doldrums when you will be popped out and used to cheer the masses on hot bread with butter.

Jerusalem Artichokes and Golden Beets

Yesterday I picked up some fabulous golden beets from the farm I pass on my way to work. I ate the greens last night with grilled salmon steak and a maple s0y glaze. Yum.


What are these, you ask? Why these are the famous tubers of the Jerusalem Artichoke. Someone in my neighborhood was giving them away for free and I realized why--they can border on being invasive. She gave me some to eat and some to plant. I figured I should taste them first, right? They are good--water chestnutty--but nothing I'm fanatical about. I sort of like the plant though, they grow very tall and are in the sunflower family, so they get nice yellow flowers. Maybe I'll tuck them away somewhere in a corner of the property. Aren't they alien looking?